Greater Miami

City information

The South Florida metropolitan area, also known as the Miami metropolitan area,[3][4][5][6] and designated the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is the most populous metropolis in the Southeastern United States and the eighth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States, encompassing a tri-county area on the southeastern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The metropolitan area covers the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach. The three counties are the three most populous in Florida. The term South Florida is roughly synonymous with Gold Coast. The principal cities include Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach.

Because the population of South Florida is largely confined to a strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades, the Miami urbanized area (that is, the area of contiguous urban development) is about 110 miles (180 km) long (north to south), but never more than 20 miles (32 km) wide, and in some areas only 5 miles (8.0 km) wide (east to west). South Florida is longer than any other urbanized area in the United States except for the New York metropolitan area. It was the eighth most densely populated urbanized area in the United States in the 2000 census.

As of the 2000 census, the urbanized area had a land area of 1,116 square miles (2,890 km2), with a population of 4,919,036, for a population density of 4,407.4 per square mile (1,701.7 per square kilometer). Miami and Hialeah (the second largest city in the metropolitan area) had population densities of more than 10,000 per square mile (more than 3,800 per square kilometer). The Miami Urbanized Area was the fifth largest urbanized area in the United States in the 2000 census.

The Miami metro area also includes several urban clusters (UCs) as of the 2000 Census which are not part of the Miami Urbanized Area. These are the Belle Glade UC, population 24,218, area 20,717,433 square meters and population density of 3027.6 per square mile; Key Biscayne UC, population 10,513, area 4,924,214 square meters and population density of 5529.5 per square mile; Redland UC, population 3,936, area 10,586,212 square meters and population density of 963.0 per square mile; and West Jupiter UC, population 8,998, area 24,737,176 square meters and population density of 942.1 per square mile.

In 2006, the area had an estimated 5,463,857 persons, of which 1,671,398 live in unincorporated areas. Considering that the area has an urban population of 4,919,036, only 544,821 residents live outside of the urban area, meaning that at least 1,126,577 persons live in urban unincorporated areas, but the number is actually higher.

Principal cities

Principal cities are defined by the Census Bureau based on population size and employment. In general, a principal city has more non-residents commuting into the city to work than residents commuting out of the city to work.[18] As of December 2009, the Census Bureau defined the following principal cities in the metropolitan area:[19]